 finance to order. The mayor will be joining us about 5.30 and ask me to get started. I believe we have a quorum. I see, you cannot see it here, but Councillor Chen is participating. Great. Please turn the camera on. I have not heard from Councillor Pines-Hemmer, but I assume she'll probably join us when she can. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt it? I'm just getting that done. Okay. Great. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. The next item is public forum. Is there anyone in person wishing to speak to public forum? Excellent. The man in the mask, and then the man in the awesome t-shirt. Am I right here? Yes. We never have seen that. I thought I've already done a match on the show. I hope it's a forum, so we are pleased to welcome the guests. Well, I'd like to say hello to everyone. Mr. Goodwin, you signed my check many times when I worked at the federal government. And I thank you for that. President Paul. Wait, that's got a nice picture. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. My buddy Joe McGee, my counselor, reelected. Catherine, thank you. Ali, hello, my friend. Okay. Very quickly, I just want to say that to all of you that are on the council and the board of finance, I appreciate you have this meeting all the time. I was just talking to my friend, Jordan Rodel. Thank you for your hard work. I know this is kind of where the nitty gritty of the city comes to play. I have been on a member of tax appeal or tax abidement for eight years. The mayor's former chief of staff, some people will know here, my friend, Mike Kanarak, he's the one who asked me to do it. He said, you'll be great at it. And everybody knows Mike, that's what he said to me. So, but it's my third term, so maybe he saw something. But I'd like to tell you, we just completed a very arduous process of all the tax appeals. And I believe the group met and we saw about, I don't know, about 500 cases. And we met twice a week, Councilor Hightower, hello, hi. My name's Amber Champagne. I'm talking about board of tax appeal and trying to get some payment for our work. So again, we, I've been on tax appeal for eight years. I was in my third term. We have this very, very big tax, first time since 2007 and working with Mr. Vickery. We met twice a week, three hours each time for 11 weeks or maybe 12, we also had at least 10 site visits. And every meeting required at least an hour of work. And during the time, you know, I had to take some time off from work. I worked in the arts and politics. And we were told that, you know, I inquired, I said, this just seems like a lot of work. And we were told that this was in the budget. And I would just like to say that it was great to be on tax appeal. But for example, I have someone on another commission when their partner is not home, they have to pay for a babysitter. And, you know, I'm just a working class Burlington person. And so, you know, I was told it was in the budget. I've learned a lot from tax appeal. I really love Burlington. And I just like to ask you respectfully if you could examine that. And I would appreciate you, you know, I know you look at everything thoroughly. So thank you so much. So you didn't hear me say, thanks for being on this board, all the good work. And I think the council is straightfully underpaid. And I just want to say that. And thanks to everyone and I appreciate your time. Thank you. All right, next up. And it was not all the introductions, I guess. So I wanted to do that. Steve, good kind. I was a public works director in the city engineer. I'm not going to darken the mood here. I just want to pass on two pieces of information regarding the setup connector. Unfortunately, I think you're about to make the wrong decision for all the wrong reasons. And I don't think anything I'm going to say is going to stop you. You want to pass two things on? I don't have enough copies. Two people aren't here, right? I'm not sure. Except for two copies. This isn't going to take too long. Hey, Ali. One for the two things. This way back in the day was actually my project. Since then, unfortunately, it's had many chances to evolve into a much better project along the way to the next. I just want to let people understand one thing. There's nothing to do with the environmental justice issues, which will be taken to court shortly, I think. But what I've handed you is just a piece of the project from Tomas to Flambe. And I just hope everyone understands, because this is something I don't think is happening anywhere else in the United States right now. I walked down this drawing. You can see the letters on the numbers 150, 150, and 120 kind of on the top of the road. Well, that's the width of payment in those areas. Sometimes, paste it off and see how wide that is. Nothing like this being done in this country. If you have any concern for a roadway or a complete street for anything like that, this is the absolute end to this. In some areas, this is 150 feet wide. I say, paste it off. You'll stab yourself. It's probably not going to stop you from doing it. But this project could have been downsized. It still can be. It's the wrong project, the wrong place. We can do this so much better with a complete street. Anyway, I'm not going to divvige. I'm not going to waste your time. I've looked at the first page. Just so you're aware of this, I don't know whether you are or not. I know in the documents that came to the city council that said this has gone through a checklist. City attorneys have looked at it. Well, this document would be something happened after. Got that. And just to note, this is from Bernie Cindi Hill. She represents myself as federal and is challenging the parkway just to make it clear that we do intend if this vote tonight is to go forward to the challenges that are to be settled in court. I still want to have everyone be sure that there's no doubt about that. And you're not doing this. They can only go whenever spoke up. So just going to play away. Read it if you feel like reading it. Think about the 150 feet. This could be done so much better. So many opportunities now to make this a good project. One that fits our city. Otherwise, this is pretty monstrous. So thanks for your time. Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing to speak? We will close public forum with our meeting record of two members of the public. That's always fun. The next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Is there a motion on that? Thank you. Is there a second? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion passes unanimously. I would also just draw your attention to the fact that the mayor is calling in on the phone. I've re-labeled him Merrill Weinberger calling instead of a random phone number. The next item on the agenda is BED backup software and hardware. We have a lot of items to get through. Come on up, you have a lot of them. We're going to have questions about something. But I'm not sure if you have a question about this. So rather than have you launch it to a summary, how would the board like to proceed? Are we ready for a motion or do we need a quick summary? I'll move to approve recommendations that the council offers to the GM of BED to execute the contract that has recommended a foretaste. First let's do a foretaste. Second. Great. Any other questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. That passes unanimously. The next item is BED's low income pilot rate and the continued use of the RFRAF models. How would the board like to proceed with this item? If you could talk us through this one. Absolutely. And joined by a number of our team here. So I may ask for them to weigh in depending on the questions. So in FY22, after having our first break change 12 years following the pandemic, we introduced a temporary energy assistance program that provided a 7.5% bill discount for eligible customers. We use the state fuel assistance criteria, which is 185% of the federal poverty level as the eligibility, similar to what Vermont gas uses for their low income rate. We've never had a low income rate at BED. So this was a program for us was funded with a portion, a small portion of the ARCA funds that we've made used for a rearage assistance. And as we enter FY23, we want to take a more formal step to have a low income rate. So we're going to use some authority that we have to pilot new rates for up to 18 months with the PUC. We're proposing instead of a 7.5% discount a 12.5% discount. We're keeping the eligibility criteria as it is for the temporary assistance program. And we're gonna move anyone who's on that program automatically to the new program. So there'd be no gap for anybody who is currently getting assistance, but we're hoping that this will also help more folks sign up and take advantage of the low income rate. As part of the request, we're also asking if we can have an extension through fiscal year 23 of any unspent ARCA funds to help support the implementation of the new rate. Cause we just don't know exactly how many people might choose to utilize it. And that'd be helpful for our budget planning standpoint. Any other questions? You're ready to make a motion. Yes. Thanks. I'll take a motion to take the action. It's recommended on board talks. Wow. Councilor McHenry has a second. All those in favor, please take the clarification. I'll vote for the recommended item. Thank you. All those. Somebody's keeping it. Yeah. Takes the village. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And the last BED item is a renewal of the revenue anticipation member, which I think is pretty straightforward. Is someone ready to make a motion on that? Sure. Excellent. Both items. This is their second. Okay. Great. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the item carries unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you BED. Appreciate it. All those two items are fire items. That doesn't sound great. Items for the fire department. The first being the ambulance B increase, which we did discuss last time. Would we like further discussion in this body? Yeah, just a point, which I think was covered over email, but if we can make it clear in a way if the letter's going out, if there is a favor up, and if we're not going to make it clear. I think it is clear, although the billing provider is willing to put the application process on one, make it smoother. But I think that's, so yes, I think that was clear from our billing provider was willing to do that. That's right. Yes, that's okay. All right, Chief. You said previously that you sent two bills and then there's no additional follow-up. If somebody doesn't pay, I'm just curious if that's where that policy sort of lives and if that is something that you have authority over if that's what we need to counsel. We couldn't implement a collection agency without a council approval. Okay. Thank you so much. I need to make a motion. Yeah, I'll move to take the recommended action at least about four times. Okay. Great Councilor McGee with second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. And item 4.05, some expensive but well-barned fire trucks. How would the board like to proceed with this item? Yes. Thank you all. All in motion to take the action that's recommended for years. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Chief Byer. All right, next up we have parks and we have our parks team joining us remotely this evening, Max and Cindy. The first item is the Redstone Cottage Restoration. I don't know who wants to start. Maybe Cindy, if you wanna give us a very brief overview on this item. Sure. So I think most of you are aware that the Redstone Cottage is at what we now call Key Slick Park, 311 North Avenue that the city purchased in 2016. So we're really excited now to begin the project of taking on the restoration of the historic Stone Cottage. That land and the property as noted in the memo have many restrictions on the Redstone Cottage, which is the front part has a historic easement. And also the land and the building must be used to support outdoor recreation. So having our conservation team and that home is just a perfect spot for them. So we, while we initially thought that we would be able to do the full project, it is I'm sure no surprise to nobody that with the construction costs as they are that we'll be tackling a phase one for the project in the first, this first go round we'll be doing the exterior of both buildings and then we'll do a full renovation of the Redstone Cottage, the front historic part. And when done, we will have public restrooms who will have a wonderful meeting space for our community and our conservation team will have their offices on the second floor. And that will leave in the future for a finished renovation of the addition, the upper and lower levels, but they would be able to be used by a staff when done. Looking forward to this project kind of a long time coming about six years after the purchase of the property to be able to make that building open to the public. Excellent. Any questions from the board? Ready for a motion? Yes, Councillor McGee. Probably we'll move to take the action. Great. Is there a second? Second. Councilor Jain. Thank you, Councilor Jain. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And our second parks item is the Callaghan Park Playground Replacement Contract. Is the board ready to move forward on this one? Can I just ask what the additional $50,000 is for? I think I heard one. Councilor McGee, did you ask what the additional $50,000 was for? Correct, yes. Great, thank you. Yep, so we had a further meeting with the playground company and realized that we really wanted to ensure that we met the needs of our youngest participants or users of the park belong with our teens. So what we added in was a taller component. So a built structure kind of like almost like you think of the classic playground structures, but a tall one. So our teens would have that sense of height. And also this really cool spinner. And Max, if you could help me, I can't remember the name of the spinner, but. Yes, it's called a tippy carousel. It's just a product from Compan that is universally accessible and also has sort of a bar that kind of goes around the top so that multiple people can stand on it and spin on it all in one. And also so that if somebody's transferring into it from a mobility device, it's kind of secure and gives them a grab bar to get in and out. So while we had gotten one initial agreement with you, we felt like with the changes that were suggested it was worth coming back for that additional dollars to really make sure we're meeting again, the needs from our, you know, our toddlers up through our teens. Thanks so much. Yes. Thanks. I'll make a motion to take action as recommended. And the second from Councillor McKee. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. Great, thank you very much. Thank you. And now we come to TPW. Item 4.08, authorization of sidewalk reconstruction. We'd like to start us off, but Director Spencer, why don't you at least intro us? Great. Sidewalks. Thank you. CAO Schott, I'm joined by City Engineer Norm Baldwin and Senior Engineer Laura Wheelock. And so have Maddox Wenderer, Associate Engineer back here. Thank you for your support in the conversation here on sidewalk reconstruction. Clearly pedestrian access is a key foundation of a livable community and your support for additional funds for this work through the bond and others is noted. All the questions over the last couple of days clearly indicates a desire to get this right. In our memo, we have updated our memo today because we were not explicitly clear that with the 2.1 miles of sidewalk that we had talked to you about adding in the other separate capital projects including the roundabout and the Mansfield Avenue side path, we are projected to reach three miles of construction which is that enhanced level that we together have achieved since 2016. That said, we have new methodology and we also are still working on our in-house work plan for the year and part of the adjusted motion in the packet today talks about recommending that we bring a TUC agenda item, transportation energy utilities item to discuss this in more detail with the TUC in May and we're fully prepared to do that. And I'll turn it over to senior engineer Laura Wheelock to touch on a few high points and happy to answer your questions. Yeah, so we actually had started a project back last summer where we were updating our sidewalk inventory. It's the fourth time we've updated our inventory since we started this in 2009, rating our sidewalk systems. The process of data collection was certainly slow throughout COVID and it's a challenging system and a balance to get right. Each time has been a pretty significant improvement in the way that we've assessed sidewalks both for new standards as well as new priorities within our life paths. So that process is ongoing. We finally get a significant draft in about March of this year. We did a presentation before one eight with our progress because they're one of our more invested NPAs that are vast for continual annual updates. That going forward, we will continue the conversation with one eight, bring it to the TUC without question. The DPDF commission was already on our outreach list. So if agreeable tonight, we also have a short presentation for council which will be similar to the board one eight. Right, any further, any questions on this or is the board ready to make a motion? I guess I have a question which is to say that I didn't see your new email, so thanks for your three p.m. email because I thought that was the same thing but I just haven't had a chance to look over everything yet. And I think, I guess for me, as you know, we're one and eight and strong opinions about sidewalks. And so I just when people are coming to me right now and asking like what is being paved and why I can't answer because I feel a little bit hesitant to vote on this because I don't have the answer to that. I feel like any matterless, I don't know all of the answers. So I'm guessing, I guess to what extent voting on this tonight, but I thought like this is the like final plan and to what extent it's not if you're going back and going to two committees and changes. So I can speak to that a little bit. This will be our fifth year working with SDR Island. It's, they seem to be one of our very few betters but they really do also understand working with the city as an administration as well as with our residents. They produce really high quality work. They're also very flexible. So this work isn't meant to start till July 1 based on following the bond planning. If we need to change out a work plan within their contracted list, it's as easy as changing our own crew's work plan just saying, you know, our next street is going to be this instead of this. What we're asking for tonight is really a contract maximum amount. The way that the project was bid is by unit items. And so it gives us the flexibility to really just direct where they go. If our process moving forward does change that. Working Ward 1A is not exclusively limited to just what's inside of this construction contract. We also have our own in-house one-mile work. That's very flexible. Chip and also then mentioned, I apologize, I'm back from vacation just hours ago, University of Places also on this list that I replaced and extended that project I saw two weeks ago. Any other questions? Is anyone brave enough to make a motion? I would like to make the motion as indicated on the board document. Thank you, Councilor Jenner. Is there a second? Thank you, Councilor McKee. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. Passes unanimously. And I think I'll at least introduce the next item and let the mayor get settled here. It is also a DPW item, item 4.09, the street reconstruction item. How would the board like to proceed? We also like to talk about streets or is someone able to make a motion? Yes, President Poff. I'll make the motion to as listed on the document that actually is listed on the board document. Is there a second? Thank you, Councilor Hightower. Yeah, I think, and to some extent, it could also be that I'm not great at planning things on the website, but if we can also have a similar thing for Sadloss, that's for all those who are planning throughout the project for the discussion. Happy to do that. May 2. Any further discussion on this item? All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? And the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Catherine, for keeping us moving. And I will go to 4.10 now, which is maybe something like a month extension of the second memorandum of understanding to a board for that purchase agreement and drop-off center. So if you want to just say a few direct remarks. Yes, we have been working to get a modern, safe drop-off center in Burlington currently. What CSWD operates is organics only on Hight Street. Burlington deserves a better, more full-service center. Chittin Solid Waste District is going through a whole strategic planning effort to understand what they want to do with drop-off centers in the county. Do they have a few regional centers? Do they have lots of local centers? Do they want to get out of the business there? Going through that now. In addition, we, in the next few months, will know that the parkway is under construction and we have a preferred alternative for the rail yard enterprise project. Those three items, as well as public and council input, will help us better decide where the right location for this drop-off center is. Is it at 339 Hight Street or Flynn Avenue? And who should be managing it if CSWD prepared to manage this? So we're asking for an eight-month extension to give us a window in which to have those conversations and decisions to better inform the next step on the drop-off centers. Thank you, Chittin. Discussion? All right, for a motion. I'll move to approve right now the state council authorize the eight-month extension as listed on four dots. So is there a second? Okay, can you tell us something to do? Thank you. Another discussion. Great, same number. We're going to vote. All those in favor of a motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Chittin. We're adjourned for this. We'll get a resolution on this. Thank you. 4.11, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, our allocation plan and substantial amendments to the 2021 action plan. So see you later. Brian Pine is here and Todd Rollins is the live body. Joining us for the meeting up. Todd, would you like to give us a brief summary of the section and the board? Yeah, happy to. Good evening all. In December of 2021, the Board of Finance and City Council approved the acceptance of this $1.5 million grant that is to be used exclusively to help address homelessness in Burlington. That acceptance was conditional on preparing an allocation plan for HUD's approval. And after extensive outreach and research, we prepared and released the plan for public comment on March the 2nd. Public comments ended on April 1st. And the request in front of the Board of Finance is to approve that plan as drafted and send it along to the City Council. In terms of the details of the plan, what we heard overwhelmingly from our partners at our local continuum of care was that the creation of new permanently affordable rental housing for folks coming out of homelessness was the number one need in our community. And in the memo and plan, I think it's clear that we've put the as much, we've allocated as much of the $1.5 million as we reasonably could to that activity. Okay, thank you, Todd. Questions from the Board? A motion to approve the actions representative for HUD. Thank you. It's our second. All right, discussion or seeing no discussion, a little bit of vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All right, opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Todd. That brings us to 4.12. Let's see no item. They turn on the classification of a role in the Justice Senate. Great job. How is the Board? Let's appreciate it on this one. I'm ready to go straight to the motion. Council member, I'm happy to make the motion. Thank you. Is there a second? Second by Councilor McGee. Thank you for joining us, Tony. Discussion. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All right. All right, opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay, next up is an MOU. This is 4.13 between AFSCME emergency communication specialists and the City of Barlington. I'm happy to speak with this item as a part of the negotiating team while a bit unusual to bring something to this body before early in the negotiating process, I think we all recognize that this is an unusual year for many circumstances. And we all have a stake in wanting to ensure that what we call dispatch runs smoothly. And this was an area where AFSCME and the city administration were able to come to an initial agreement relatively quickly to find a solution where, as you can see, we're down to seven dispatchers. We're supposed to have 12. And we have this tentative agreement where if there's 10 or fewer, we are compensating the dispatchers who are left. And then at an additional rate of $4 an hour, that's just for their straight time, not for overtime, sick or vacation. And then should we, I hope, be in the good fortune of getting up to 10 or 11, that rate would go down to an additional $2 per hour. We've calculated the maximum impact that could be and found that that does work within the VPD budget. And I'm happy to answer if any questions. I'm happy to move to change it. And recommend that the city council move the execution at ME between AFSCME and the city of Berlin to discuss. Discussion? Can I just ask in terms of recruitment incentive, is this like posted with this hazard pay bonus or I just wanna kind of know what the recruitment piece of this is? That is a great question that we haven't talked about, but answering on the fly and I think Tony's still here. Yes, I would imagine that at this time, we would certainly be advertising that way. And then obviously in the interviews, we'll need to explain all of that, but this certainly makes this more appealing. And yes, we'll advertise this way. Do you have a question? No, it's okay, I should have thought of it. Any further discussion? So now we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries to cancel. Great. 4.15 now, classification of one court treasurer position. This is another court treasurer HR item. I'm afraid for a motion here, or is that what I was talking about? I'll move to front end of the state council, approve the reclassification and retitling as we'll set up for discussion. Seconded by President Powell. Thank you. Discussion? Seema, we're going to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And that brings us to 4.16, the approval of policy for board and commission compensation. I'd like to move to our... Go ahead, Councillor Jayne. To approve and out of the attached city board of commission compensation policy effective recertity to July 1st, 2021. The motion has been made in second discussion. Thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge people speaking to themselves that Councillor Barlow did send an email around and actually reached out to me last week about this policy. And I do appreciate the fact that we are doing something retroactively. But the way that I look at this is that whether we did it six months ago or we're doing it today, a commitment is a commitment and we need to honor that commitment. I did hear from a couple of commissioners in addition to Andrew Champaign, who said that those funds are going to make it possible for them to have childcare while they are at a meeting. And that we assured them that this was coming. And back in February, there were commissions who had emails coming to them to go out of deputy nine. They anticipated it. They expected we have to honor it. And that's why I'm supporting it. Further discussion. That's right. Yeah, and I think I wasn't aware that we'd already communicated this to the boards and commissioners since I think. And so I guess maybe just a question. Did we communicate this in July 1st, 2021 and that when it was communicated? Yes, broadly speaking, it was communicated then when we put it in the budget. And it was sort of widely communicated as part of the equity pieces of the equity initiative from the state of the city. That was one of the specific items. So there was a rather large sort of public piece around that. And so starting last July, a lot of board and commission members became aware of it. And so started asking questions. And then that did continue as we worked on implementing it. And President Paul alluded to getting all the W-9s is quite a lot of work. And so our payroll department started doing that in February. And so then they really started anticipating it. Maybe just give away how much they do or don't attention to the state of the city address. I have a question. Oh yeah, you don't know where to go from here. You don't know where to go. Okay. Sorry, Councillor Chang, go ahead. Yes. And maybe for Catherine or it seems also that the boards and commissioners also have the power to not request any hours to just to not request any compensation. Is that correct as well? Yes, they can refuse to be compensated. They cannot then direct their compensation elsewhere, but they do not need to be compensated if they do not wish to be compensated. That is correct. I think that's an important point. And basically to Councillor Paul's about my battles, I think this is long overdue. And from my perspective, this will open a door for all the people to be able to serve the city because the city is now thinking of supporting them in all the expenses such as childcare. I'm happy to support this. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Chang. And certainly, you know, I appreciate that clarification and I think it's certainly not something industry is encouraging people not to take it. We don't want it to be seen as policies. This is what people are doing for their certain roles. And so while that is not just not what we're encouraging. OK, any further discussion? If not, we will go to a vote. All those of you who are most simply say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. OK, I believe it brings us to our last deliberative item. We are going to have some time of Oseakos for some budget discussion. But we have Nemi back here. 417 is the Shandpik Parkway project initial construction for a contract by initial phase one construction contract. And this is a significant moment in the long life of this project that is backed by some measures to the 60s. And it's a substantial contract, $45 million contract. So let's spend a couple of minutes just like we had our previous discussion we talked about last time. I don't think we don't need to recount the entire 60 year history, but a brief summary of where we're at. Great. Thank you, Mayor. I'll kick this off and then turn it over to staff. I have with me tonight, North Baldwin City Engineer, Senior Engineer Corey Bins, and also joined by John Rose, who has been providing legal support for the city on this project. Thanks for the opportunity to brief you all on April 11. Tonight, we're seeking authorization to execute a initial construction contract. The city did take over this project in 1998 through multiple administrations, multiple city councils. We have made this project a much better project. You heard from public comment tonight that there are still our design elements that may not be optimal. But that is why this administration fought for the future flexibility letter from E-Trans. And that 2006 letter says that once we build this project, we have the right to redesign elements of it, to meet the need of the community. That is what we are hanging our hat on, because we do not want to be stuck with one design forever. E-Trans leadership, Michelle Luhmhauer, will be in attendance tonight at the city council meeting to directly ask any questions that you have because they are a key partner in our success here. And I'm going to turn it over with that to Norma. So I guess I'll jump into the financial side of this equation. Obviously, as you understood from last meeting, there was an overdose for us as a local match obligation, both not participating in 2%, but not participating. We have followed up on this, and they're not participating costs. It's an additional $1 million. $1,9,500 or $68 would be more precise. But as it exists, the project has funding to cover its initial two first years of non-participating costs. And so we don't anticipate that need will occur in the near term, but will occur likely in fiscal year 25. And so part of our conversation since the last meeting is we've met with the Capital Committee to discuss other priorities that could be in this context. And it was understood that no commitment could be made at this time for the FY25, but there were certainly options available to solve this bust or additional costs of using potentially the $2 million of CIP bonding that's regularly authorized and then also any other potential of using the 2325 bond. But there was no formal commitment for the 25 itself. So that piece is where it stands. And then the other piece was 2% local match. 2% local match is coming from the Street Capital. It is seeking an additional $165,000 a year or $194,000 in that three-year period of construction. For the Street Capital program, they are getting a significant benefit to this project in respect that they're getting new sidewalks, new curve, new roadway, so on and so forth. It's valued much more than what 30% local match would be. Therefore, it's a true benefit to the system. So we believe that there's space within that budget to assume those additional costs. So financially, I think we're in good shape to proceed with the project, but we certainly want to hear from you and your thoughts about whether that's an acceptable solution to fund the balance. And to your engineer, I'm going to say anything we forgot. No. I'm going to cover a portion about public high street, which if we didn't move forward this project, it'd be expensive just to hide through a wall with pretty close to what we're looking at additional expenses for. And then just a private question based on that comment. Are we widening high street? High street is there is concurrent realignment. It's not being widened. Intersections is being decreased in the road width to accommodate the shared capital in the Western side, as well as address excellent features on the Eastern side of our house and the Jordan crosswalks. Sorry, I don't know how high street is specifically. I just realized I don't actually know what street I'm looking at. I think that was in the streets. Couple of questions just a minute. OK, excellent. Good. Let's go to you, Councillor Jang. Thank you for getting us there. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation team. I was wondering about one aspect that I haven't heard about this project. Basically, it's burying the utilities underground. Is it included? And who is going to pay for that specific item? Yes, so there is a portion of undergounding. It's for Lakeside Avenue between Pine and the new section of connecting to the new intersect of the new segment of the parkway. And so there is a cost sharing there. Municipal utilities have a more favorable utility costs than, say, the private utilities. And so we have agreements with the ETA to make all those connections, but all the support is part of this contractor's scope of work. And so that has all been part of this cost and this budget that we've built. Wonderful. And, Chappan, based on our conversation today, it seems that there are a couple of things that the city is responsible for, such as maybe soils, maybe around three millions. And I was just wondering, it's just specific to the soil or all the other items as well? There are not as well there's landscaping, there's lighting. Those are probably the biggest ticket items landscaping, lighting, and soils. The soils is predominantly the highest cost of all those items. Thank you. And this is the last question. And it is specific to what we have heard on Bordak that the city, if the city moves forward, we might be subject to litigation. And I was wondering if, what the city I don't have to say about that, but what the recommendation do we have? That was going to be a private tour of your project. Yes, so the question is about litigation going forward. Councilor, just to clarify, there's already a lawsuit pending that has been pending since 2009. That's a challenge. Primarily against the Federal Highway Administration. 2019. Sorry, I'm sorry, 2019. That would be a long one. And it's primarily against the Federal Highway Administration and the National Environmental Policy Act. What that lawsuit was about was basically that it said you didn't do enough process in environmental review before you approved the project. So Federal Highway Administration remanded that or said, well, let's go back and let's do some more environmental process. That's what's been going on in the last two years. So right now, there's still a lawsuit pending. The court has basically stayed the lawsuit while the city conducted this additional and Federal Highway Administration conducted this additional environmental process and review. And we're now sort of back into the case again. So I'm not aware of any other threats. I can't really, I probably shouldn't get too deeply into the litigation itself, but I'm not aware of any other lawsuit that's currently being brought. Thank you. Before you go, John, can you just remind us? I mean, the project has been under constant legal challenge for the last decade. And I think our track record is quite strong with respect to those challenges. Yeah, it's been it's been. So there have been, I think, at least five or six, six since since I came on to the case six years ago. I came into the project six years ago. The city is prevailed in all those challenges so far and feels comfortable that we'll be able to manage any other group of risks as well. The legal costs are project costs. Very clearly. The project costs are the city has a share of that cost, but not an empty share. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you for coming here. Great. Further discussion? I think we are looking for the current item on the full council meeting tonight. So we are able to support if I get this opportunity to weigh in and make recommendations. Thank you. Almost approved. We recommend that the state council authorize DPW executive contract with the state air link as listed on board. Councilor Anderson, seconded by Councilor McGee. Councilor McGee, but you do it, but I appreciate it. You're ready to do it. Councilor Zhang, any further discussion? Seeing none, we will go to vote. All those in favor of the motion? Unfortunately, something's happening. We lost something happening upstairs. But so it's just before we're voting. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And thank you for working through that and a very busy agenda. It was not two minutes before, what's happening at 6 o'clock? At 6 o'clock, we were supposed to have a court session on districting. I think, is that happening upstairs? I'm sure this is not an executive session, but it's a reason. I don't try hard to answer that. I just think it was worth it. OK, so how do we have just literally a five minute conversation on just maybe mostly a process conversation? Catherine and I and the Parliament team have been working hard since time being a day to bring forward a budget for FY23 that will work within the various challenges that we have this year. And if you think it is a particularly challenging budget year, probably said that before over the last decade, but this one has some unique challenges. And that's captured at the beginning of this PowerPoint. Is this PowerPoint posted? It is, right? Yeah, it was posted yesterday. So you can see none of this is particularly new. It does continue to evolve. We've seen in place can go up again since we were talking about it around town meeting day. We are just a real risk of pandemic impacted revenue shortfalls, but we have a plan for that. We were aware. I mean, one shift as we go from the FY22 budget to the FY23 budget is it's important that we use less federal money this year than we did last year when we were quite heavily on the relief funds. And the other challenge here is there's just a substantial amount of uncertainty. We've been through this before in my time a couple times, but what's different this time is given inflation, there's some more uncertainty about where the union collective bargaining agreements are going to land. And then usually by this time, we have greater certainty about what the budget around that we do right now. So those are the challenges. Perhaps at a time, we're just not too late upstairs. Moving quickly to principles, I find that discussing the principles is often a helpful part of this and wanted to try to be as explicit as we could about how we approach this. And this is also another good place to engage in the weeks and a couple months ahead if people think we are missing a principle or don't have something quite right here. It's not too late to engage at this level. We are trying to work within the voter constraints. We are not planning on going back for another bite of the apple, for example, which is possible, but it's a big deal to have a special election. We're not planning on doing that. It is a major goal to avoid layoffs and furloughs of current city employees. Sort of the flip side of that point is we are focused on cuts and non-personnel budget lines. We are not anticipating because of those first three principles, substantial new initiatives and sort of the structural budget, if you will. That said, I do think we have the opportunity to be quite responsive to emerging needs. Things are going on right now in that we do have these one-time funds, the ARPA funds, as well as we're in a good position with the unassigned fund balance. And so I don't think it's going to be just all bad news budget. I think we'll be able to make some significant interventions and investments even while having to be quite disciplined about the structural budget and sort of the base budget. Related to that, did you want to be recognized there? Related to that, we also have a little bit more flexibility with the enterprise funds, which have greater flexibility within their revenue sources. And the fact that we're attacking the climate emergency so aggressively, as you're going to hear shortly, from the broader lecture department means I think we're going to be able to keep making, there we are going to keep making sort of structural long-term investments, ongoing investments through the BED budget. The fact that the revenue bond passed last fall is going to really help there. There may be the possibility to make your positive adjustments to the budget in that we are, as you may recall, if you last time you met, approved new grants positions for us to go out and try to secure our share of this competitive federal money that's out there. If we get those grants, that may allow us to come back and make adjustments mid-year as well. And I guess the last one just repeats the point about the uncertainty with the unions. We are opening, and we'd say later in this PowerPoint, I think it's probably not worth trying to get at this point. It's like we hope over the course that we're working together before kind of bringing to the full council budget. We'll have some greater certainty about where the cost of living items are going to land really over the course of May. We will be having important discussions that may clarify that, may not. How do we attempt to meet these challenges so, great, Katherine, for putting this up. Now, Katherine, I don't know what your conversation is with President Paul is, but I'm trying to be done in about a minute here, so we go upstairs. But I guess let me see, let me just spend a, so we've got, we've had a taste of this. We really obviously should spend more time, I think, talking at this point. I think let's find a way to ensure that we have this high-level discussion. But let's come back to this presentation at the Board of Finance meeting two weeks from now before the departmental meetings begin, which begin later that week, right? And so, if I'm open to some different idea, but I would say this is sort of, we've got the submissions, you know, I'm sorry, things worked out, we didn't have a chance to discuss it tonight. We've got it well in advance, the next time we'll get together. And if we'll plan on just having at least, we'll try to reserve like close to half, try to have like a half-hour discussion next time. And if there are questions or things you would like to us to build out in this presentation next time based on having this, that would, you know, let's be in communication over the next two weeks. And then for people who haven't gone through the process before, can't remember Joe for this last year, if we will then go after this sort of global discussion, we will then go into four nights, four marvelous nights in May. Four marvelous nights in May. As Catherine has termed it, where we will go department by department and go through the whole bunch. That's right. Super quick comment. I guess just looking at this like quick, very quick feedback, I think it makes sense to prioritize full increase over the professional development for the one year, given my distance, hopefully a one-year situation that we're in. I don't know what's gonna happen in March next year. And then I think the maybe first kind of pushback that I would have, which I think we also had this two years ago, is the, what that means, what the cut to the seasonal workers means for some of the like lower income hospitals and probably a 10-minute, if we can, to the extent that we can avoid that one. I think the consultants is an easy line-out to try to have more of a, that would be one that I, those seasonal workers, I think it's less true than that. Understood. Okay, so we'll focus on what we're doing exactly as I was telling you. Great. So we will adjourn now, but we'll try to follow up. We'll cut around with all of the email, and invite the first things we'd like fleshed out in this document before we meet again in two weeks. Feel free to suggest that. And there, without objection, we are adjourned as a Board of Finance at 6 or 7 p.m.